alevel resits

hello everyone, need some help. i didnt do the best on my alevels and want to resit them this year. i took bio, chem and math. initially i was just going to retake those 3 but i was thinking since math isnt my best subject, would i be able to take a different exam for a different subject as ill be paying for these exams anyway. for example, from what ive heard sociology is quite easy in comparison and i think i can do well in that exam, so can i just pay for the exam and study on my own? also, for bio and chem, if i retake those i dont have to repeat the practical endorsement as ive already passed, right. oh yeah, last thing. can i just call up any college as a center to do these exams as ive already been told i can ask my previous sixth form but id really rather not do it there. thank you thank you.

Hi, as someone who was in the same position as you last year (but with Maths and physics) I do have a few things to make you aware of that I wish I knew before private resits. If you are paying to resit an exam privately you can absolutely choose another subject but do keep in mind that you will only have a year to prepare for an exam that normally takes twice that amount of time to prepare for. You can study on your own (I studied from home and used a private exam centre) but that is more of a question whether you can trust yourself to stay motivated to study. My main concern for you is that depending on your exam board you may be asked to resit your practical exam regardless of whether or not you passed originally (This happened to me with physics and trust me it can be a massive headache if you don't have the money to resit a practical exam) my exam board was wjec so I dont know if its the same for other exam boards but I would double check. If you can try and resit your exams with a collage then I would recommend it, there's no harm in calling but a lot of collages don't accept private candidates. I don't want to scare you away from resitting but these are all things I wish I knew before resitting last year, it did work out for me in the end and I'm starting university this week so best of luck!

So did you just call a bunch of centers to see who could take you because idek where to start if it isn’t colleges. And I think since I would basically have to reteach myself all of math, i’d take my chances with sociology (if that’s what i end up doing) since my friends took the subject and it seemed way more relaxed. For the practical endorsement tho it was like a million different practicals so how would that even work? I just pray that’s not required cuz im already stressed about everything. Also what was the deadline for finding a center and paying for the exams? I don’t want to rush anything but also don’t want to leave things last minute? Last thing, sorry for ambushing u i literally have absolutely no one to ask about this or just talk to, but for ur ucas application how did u get that sorted. like if i were to do a different subject, and were to ask my old head of year, he can’t really base the predicted grades on anything. since im no longer attending the school could i like ask my form tutor or something, especially since i don’t think my hoy would have time for me or be a good rep. best of luck with uni and thank u so so much for the help!!!

Thing is my subjects are all different exam boards, so can centres also offer that? Exams with different exam boards at the same centre? It would be a humongous headache to have to go to a million different exam centres. I'll be checking today a bunch of different ones as I'm trying to get it sorted as soon as possible. Ohh I think it's different in Wales, cuz for us the practical endorsement part isn't an exam. It's a bunch of different practicals you have to complete throughout the two years and a write out a report for each of them. Also, how much did you pay for all 3 exams? I think I'll have to convince my teacher to give me high predicted grades, cuz if the unis ring me up and ask what i initially got, im screwed. thanks for the help again. have never felt so unbelievably stressed out.

From what i know exam centres should be able to accomodate a mix of exam boards as long as they offer all the exam boards you need, a lot of them do offer at least aqa, eduquas, and ocr so it shouldn't be that difficult. That makes a lot of since given what I found back when it seemed like I may have to do a practical exam, there are ways to take it privately but from what I remember its like you have to go on multiple dates and you do multiple experiments in a day but don't quote me on that one, in wales we do have to make a lab folder for our practical exam with the required practicals on the spec but in full honesty in wjec its more of a formality, I dont think mine was even checked when I sat my practical. So in wjec I resat to levels that had 4 papers each and usually you pay per paper so I paid around £830 for 8 exam papers but you can always query that with exam centres before agreeing to anything. As for the predicted grades vs original exam grades I obviously don't know what you got in ur a levels but unis will know that you are re-sitting for a reason, most of my applications didn't care about them anyway, if you can get predicted grades then that's great but I wouldn't stress out too much if you cant. If its any help the ones I applied to that didn't demand predicted grades were bangor, Liverpool, and Nottingham (york did request them but after an email explaining my situation they gave me an offer anyway)